Jammie Holmes has brought one of his paintings onto the playing field in Paris. For the first edition of NFL COLOR FIELD, the Louisiana-born artist’s Untitled (2024) was translated into hand-painted end zones for a flag-football pitch beneath the Eiffel Tower, placing a portrait of childhood at the centre of a public sporting event.
The source painting shows a child surrounded by morning glory flowers. Broad pale petals frame the face, while dark leaves and stems fill the background. Enlarged and laid horizontally, the composition becomes a surface approached from different directions. The white pitch markings and green turf sit between the two painted ends, giving the work a very different setting from the wall of a gallery.
Holmes connects the image to watching his sons grow up, and to the fleeting stages of childhood. That intimate subject survives the shift in scale. A public commission can easily become an exercise in spectacle; here, the starting point remains a single figure and the family experience behind it.
The field was fabricated in New York by six muralists working with a field specialist, then transported to France. It formed part of NFL Experience Paris at Place Jacques-Rueff on October 23–24, 2026, where free public programming included flag football and skills workshops.
For Holmes, the Paris setting also carries a personal connection. During a residency at the Académie des Beaux-Arts and Cité internationale des arts, he learned that his great-grandfather had travelled through France during the First World War. The project brings that family link together with his Louisiana upbringing and lifelong connection to the New Orleans Saints.
COLOR FIELD extends the NFL’s Artist Replay programme, launched in 2023, and was developed with curator and arts strategist Jasmine Martin of Pivotal Arts. A further edition is planned for Miami Art Week in December, with the participating artist and programme still to be announced.
The Paris presentation offers a direct way of taking painting into everyday activity: people encounter the image while gathering, playing and moving across the field. Take a closer look at the project and its source painting above.